Shakespeare is in the news today due to the fight of three male Shakespearean leads for the Best Male Actor prize at the Olivier awards last night. But another bard-based story has caught our eye in the swirl of iambic pentameters and though it's been rumbling along for a week already, it's clear old William still knows how to shake things up... Nine girls at Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in Stamford, north London,......

Boris Johnson is backing a plan to bring Routemasters back into action, with electric motors and no emissions, and the reintroduction of drivers and conductors on each bus. With characteristic swiftness, Ken Livingstone has taken opposition to the plan and Londoners are once again torn between the two views on the possible return of the famous big red bus. For a brief set by Autocar magazine, design company Capaco came up with the electric......

While pigeons are getting a bit of stick today, heartwarming news of sparrows getting new homes at London Zoo courtesy of prisoners in Spring Hill prison balances the scale somewhat. After a long absence, sparrows have come back to London and are being housed in ten brand new bird boxes built by prisoners at Spring Hill prison in Buckinghamshire. The question "Where have all the sparrows gone?" crops up again and again in nostalgia-tinged......

Alexis Lemaire saw to it that 'mathlete' irrevocably entered our vernacular when he broke the record he set for mental calculation at London's Science Museum. He correctly determined the 13th root of a randomly generated two hundred-digit number to the 13th root (now consider that your average calculator can't even determine things to 13 decimal places, never mind trying to calculate anything with a two hundred digit number). As the calculation only took Lemaire......

Hackney Council are at it again. Taking half arsed decisions on Banksys. Last time they completely removed a stencil of a girl in a frilly dress and gas mask from Gillett Square. This time they've tried to wipe out the crude phallus being painted by the old fashioned, beard and hat sporting artist on the side of the Vietnamese restaurant in Victoria Park Road. What are they like? A council spokesperson said: "Most people......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 26th November 1983: An armed robbery at the Brinks Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport becomes the largest heist in British history, as £25 million worth of gold bullion is pinched. Tuesday – 27th November 2000: 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor is stabbed in the leg and dies in Peckham, south London. The following six years would see several trials and re-trials over the killing, finally culminating in the......

It’s probably fair to say that the couple of hundred people who wandered up to the Union Chapel in Islington last Friday were expecting a fairly low-key affair. Arguably the biggest name at the Little Noise Sessions gig in aid of Mencap was to be the compere, Radio 1’s Jo Whiley, although we accept that a few of the audience may have been a bit excited about US indie rockers We Are Scientists. Not......

28. Urban Legends Of The Underbelly! Urban legends are often vague, friend-of-a-friend tales (FOAFtales) similar to ‘Chinese whispers’, in that they are distorted, exaggerated and through generations of storytelling, they become myth, embedded in our society. For the last fifty or more years there has been a sinister legend pertaining to the London Underground that a mysterious, possibly caped figure, lurks in the cold tunnels, and is known for the ghastly act of pushing......

Due to earlier technical vexations of a non-Stratford-related variety, Monday Miscellanea is a bit later than usual today... This Week In London’s History Monday – 12th November 1974: A 9lb salmon is caught in the Thames – the first time that such a fish has been caught in the dirty old river since 1834 – and sent to the British Museum for identification. Improvements in the water quality are hailed. Tuesday – 13th November......

The United States remains tops in London’s tourism market, according to stats released by Visit London, as leaders of the tourism industry convene this week at London’s annual World Travel Market. This, despite the dollar’s worst performance against the pound in 26 years. That whimper you hear every morning? A collective sigh from your American coworkers, mates, and visitors, as they monitor the daily exchange rate. The American market, though continuing to send forth......

26. Going Underground Urban legends of the more sinister variety have always intrigued me, so continuous whispers and friend-of-a-friend tales concerning a mutant race of beings inhabiting the dark tunnel systems, sewers and subterranean passages beneath the capital are always welcome, even if unfounded (despite rumours circulating as far back as the nineteenth century). However, one thing us folklorists do know is that the underbelly of the city is teeming with all manner of......

A new sculpture for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is unveiled today. Elbowing Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant out of the way (rudely ignoring all the current efforts of Team Nice) is German artist Thomas Schütte's Model for a Hotel 2007 and it replaces Quinn's cool, white, serene statue of a round-stomached Lapper with something distinctly more colourful and quirky. After a two year gestation period, Alison Lapper Pregnant has been taken down......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 29th October 1986: The M25 ‘London orbital’ motorway is officially opened by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, at a ceremony at the last section to be completed (junctions 22 and 23 in Hertfordshire). Tuesday – 30th October 1883: A group known as the Fenian Dynamiters detonates a bomb on the Metropolitan Railway, injuring 62 people. Wednesday – 31st October 1971: An IRA bomb explodes on the 33rd floor......

24. Haunted Roads For Halloween! Despite London’s congested roads and the daily chorus of thousands of beeping horns, ghosts of the cities roads are in fact sporadic. Look through any catalogue of phantom hitchhikers or ghostly vehicles (for example http://www.roadghosts.com/) and you’ll notice a distinct lack of activity within the capital pertaining to tarmac terrors. Why this is we’ll never know – maybe it’s simply down to the fact that elsewhere in the country,......

Modernisation of the Thameslink railway route that runs North-South through central London has finally begun; this news today must come as a relief to anyone who has the displeasure to share packed morning trains with this Londonista. Supposedly, the £5.5 billion project will bring "more seats, less crowding, more direct services and better connections in London," according to Andrew Mitchell of Network Rail. Longer station platforms, more peak-time trains and new rolling stock are......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 22nd October 1809: The Croydon Canal, linking Croydon to Deptford via Forest Hill, is opened. Requiring 28 locks to overcome the gradients of the route, it would never become a commercial success, and would be closed just 37 years later. Tuesday – 23rd October 1731: A fire breaks out in Ashburnham House in Westminster, damaging much of the Cotton Library – a renowned collection of Middle English......

23. The Woman In Black This week’s feature on London’s darker side is more of a review, simply because last week, Saturday 13th October, myself and my cousin ventured to see The Woman In Black stage show at the Fortune Theatre, on Russell Street in Covent Garden. For those of you who are not familiar with this chilling ghost story, it is an adaptation of Susan Hill’s fine book and has been running in......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 15th October 1881: The Royal Comedy Theatre (now simply known as the Comedy Theatre) opens in the West End. Tuesday – 16th October 1987: In the early hours of the morning, a huge storm of hurricane intensity wreaks havoc across London (and much of the rest of southern England). Wednesday – 17th October 1814: At the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a colossal vat containing......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 8th October 1965: The Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in Fitzrovia becomes operational as a major hub for national microwave telecommunications. Today it is the only building in the UK that is legally allowed to be evacuated using its lifts. Tuesday – 9th October 1975: An IRA bomb explodes at a bus stop near Green Park tube station, killing one person and injuring......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 24th September 1917: A zeppelin drops a 50 kilogram bomb that lands just outside the Bedford Hotel on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, central London. 13 people are killed and a further 26 injured. Tuesday – 25th September 1818: The first human-to-human blood transfusion is performed at Guy’s Hospital. Previous blood transfusions had used animals’ blood. Wednesday – 26th September 1850: The first stretch of the North London......

19. Freakish Falls! During the August of 1920 in Woodford, stones poured from the sky for three consecutive days without explanation. Four years later at Eltham, Plumstead, Woolwich and Shooters Hill a great ice storm battered the area, despite the afternoon being the hottest for two years! The hailstones were the size of eggs, and some jagged in nature, measuring five-inches which fell from the sky, cutting residents who ran for cover. In January......

Experimental hardcore stars The Locust play The Underworld on Monday night. Tickets are £12 each, and still available for box office collection. Emo favourites Circa Survive play the Barfly, though tickets are long gone. The Ravonettes play Bush Hall for a sold out show, former Japan frontman David Sylvian plays Royal Festival Hall, with a smattering of tickets available at £37.50 each. John Mayer plays the first of two sold out nights at the Royal......

From BBC News: London must become car-free if it is to substantially cut carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Crikey. In response to the findings London Green Party member Jenny Jones said: "I have asked the London mayor to do a feasibility study into creating a car free pedestrian zone in central London linking all the main squares and parks. "We need to show that the car no longer rules in London......

Hard-Fi have announced a massive UK tour of arenas throughout the land, including a night at Wembley Arena. They’ll be bringing their tales of urban hell to Wembley on Tuesday 18th December, with tickets on sale tomorrow morning at 9am. For those quick off the mark on their refresh buttons, Bloc Party play Camden Barfly (yes, you’ve heard me right – they’ve sold out two nights at Ally Pally but they’re doing a miniscule show)......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th September 1973: IRA bombs explode at King’s Cross and Euston mainline stations, injuring 13 people. Witnesses describe a teenager planting the first bomb by throwing it into the crowded ticket hall at King’s Cross. Tuesday – 11th September 1980: Armed robbers steal almost £1.5m worth of diamonds from a jewellery shop in Knightsbridge, west London. The haul includes a famous stone known as the Marlborough Diamond,......

Monday night sees mad Australians Architecture in Helsinki come to the capital to play Koko after a stop off at Bestival this weekend. Tickets are £12.50 each and still available for box office collection. Faithless play the first of two nights in the capital at Shepherds Bush before moving on to Brixton on Tuesday night, which is mostly sold out though there are some balcony seats left. KT Tunstall plays an instore at HMV on......

Sting and Co bring The Police to Wembley Arena on Saturday 20th October to finish off their European tour before jetting off to North America. Tickets go on sale at 9am tomorrow, but expect them to go quickly. Madness plays the O2 on Friday 14th November as part of a quick UK arena tour. Tickets are on sale at 9am tomorrow morning. Kanye West brings his “Glow in the Dark Tour” to London in......

It's a different, puzzling and frankly bizarre world in the bingo hall; the little slips of paper, the special pens, the stream of what sounds like nonsense coming from the chap at the front which only the initiated are able to translate into numbers... still, it is a world of winners and losers, of champions and inspirational figures. Even figures that stand below 5 foot tall have an indefinable streak of success running through......

Lights go on... lights go off... lights go on... lights go off... Contemporary life hums, buzzes, whirrs and recharges with electricity that we take for granted. It's always there - coming out of our wall sockets, stored in our batteries and flowing around us in cable after cable, concealed in every wall and under every floor. BOiLEROOM is a theatre company with a fantastically eclectic line-up, bizarrely well-suited for the kind of stories and......

It seems summer is officially over now (though it seems to have never properly arrived really…), and with that the early autumn tours start to make an appearance. First on Monday night are two bands that are playing at this weekend’s Connect festival, Modest Mouse and the Polyphonic Spree. American band Modest Mouse play the Forum, with standing tickets sold out, but still with seats available at £18.50 each. The Spree brings their triumphant show......